Borderlands 2

This blog post we take a look at Borderlands Two. As always I am Froseph and welcome to Pandora. The Hyperion corporation and Handsome Jack have come to tame the wilds and search for the mother lode of all vaults. You have the choice of playing several characters depending on if you have gotten all the the DLC content. The basics are The Commando, The Assassin, The Siren and The Gunzerker. If you have gotten the DLC content you also have The Mechromancer and The Psycho. Upon Choosing you find yourself swept into a cutscene and you are a vault hunter and on your way to meet handsome jack when. Out of no where comes a betrayal five and for those of you who don’t know that is a scrubs reference. When your train is blown up and you meet probably the saddest and most delusion character of the game claptrap a robot that is the brunt of all most jokes in the game and who you kinda feel sorry for as the story progresses. So lets break this down before I head out on my diamond pony and I mean it is literally made of diamonds.

First are the mechanics on this game the ui which runs your standard health, shields and map is the stable for many fps platforms while the out of game inventory, quest log and character screen give it a rpg feel. Upon leveling you are given three skill trees to choose from to place your skill points as well as by doing random things in game you also get badass points, which can be turned to buff many aspects of your character such as recoil reduction to critical strike. While it is a fun single player game I actually feel the it lends better to the multi-player because the skill trees all seem more 3 additional players. Likewise the enemies in the game have a slightly below average ai but to make up for that they throw enemies at you as if you personally killed the game designers father. While in multiplayer mode you would get the same amount of enemies.

On to transportation in borderlands, Transportation is the key and the catch-a-ride delivers as it allows you to call forth one of many vehicles that can shoot drill blades to missiles it also allow you to teleport back to your vehicle should you die. Pandora has all the elements deserts, plains and tundra’s. So you will be spend a lot of time exploring and fighting your way through enemies respawns that make you feel like you are facing a unending horde.

The last piece of mechanics and what I feel is a minor set backs is it having a true randomization of the weapons. Because in this game each gun maker gives a gun a different ability from rapid fire to increased zoom and like any other fps game you have sniper rifles, pistols, shotguns, rocket launchers, Smg and rifles. They all also have a element that can be randomized on to them such as poison, incendiary, shock or slag. So just with those few pieces not including the fact that items can be common, uncommon, rare, epic or legendary. You have quite a setup. So sometimes your all powerful and sometimes your praying for a better gun set.

This also plays in to shields that work the same way and just give you added protection or perhaps a cool ability when your shields break that may allow you to get away and hide to recoup your shields.

The graphics are probably the most unique thing about it, now most games try to get as close to realism as possible. This game throws that right out the window at the start for a cartoon like atmosphere and the only thing it is missing is a gun suppler named acme. Now one of the nice things about this game is because of the cartoon feel any minor graphical glitches don’t take you out of the game and even in the future it will look very nice as the engine for it will hold should you want to go back to it.

Now the music in this is forgettable, in the battles where it should drive the moment or even in minor plot moments where it should push you it really doesn’t come through, as I find the battles themselves to be more of the focus. Now that being said the running commentary through the comes from old borderlands characters and handsome jack make up for the overall lack of memorable music with his witty remarks and general wise cracking nature.

So this is definitely worth playing you will laugh with the puns and juvenile humor. You will rage with the respawns who come by the 100’s and you will get joy from getting a good gun and beating all hell out of those respawns until they get a level boost and you go back to rage. The game with out the DLC has more then enough content to keep you busy for week but add in all the DLC and you have a game that has more content then you will know what to do with.